13 Dead in Iraq As Violence Continues

Attacks in Iraq killed 13 people on Tuesday, four of them Shiite worshippers.

By Elad Benari

First Publish: 8/14/2013, 3:43 AM

Site of a car bomb attack in Nasiriyah city, south of Baghdad

Reuters

The Muslim month of Ramadan, which was one of the deadliest in years in Iraq, has ended, but the violence continues.

AFP reported that attacks in Iraq killed 13 people on Tuesday, four of them Shiite worshippers, while terrorists bombed a major oil pipeline, halting exports via Turkey.

Security forces have launched major operations against terrorists in recent weeks that are said to have resulted in scores of arrests, including 12 people detained on Tuesday on suspicion of planning a massive assault on Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad last month.

But they have yet to curb a surge in violence that has killed more than 3,400 people this year.

In the deadliest attack on Tuesday, a car bomb exploded after midday prayers at a Shiite place of worship in Al-Zahraa, south of the capital, killing four people and wounding 14, according to AFP.

Terrorists have carried out attacks on both Sunni and Shiite mosques this year, raising fears of a return to the all-out sectarian conflict that peaked in 2006 to 2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.

In the northern province of Kirkuk, a car bomb killed three police.

In Salaheddin province, also north of Baghdad, bombers killed a soldier, an anti-Qaeda militiaman and two civilians.

And in Nineveh province, in the north, gunmen shot dead a former soldier and a civilian.

Terrorists in the province also bombed the main oil pipeline from northern Iraq to Turkey, near the town of Albu Jahash, reported AFP.

The attack halted exports via the pipeline, a senior official from the North Oil Company said, adding that production was continuing but the oil was being stored.

Repairs to the pipeline, which runs from the northern oil hub of Kirkuk to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey and has been hit by dozens of attacks this year, are expected to take between one and three days, the official said.

The attacks came a day after bombs targeting a cafe, a football field and a market killed 28 people north of Baghdad.

Iraq was hit by a wave of bomb attacks last weekend, as people celebrated the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan, with more than 60 reported dead

Violence in Iraq has increased markedly this year, with analysts saying the upsurge is driven by anger among the Sunni Arab minority that the Shiite-led government has failed to address, despite months of protests.

Attacks have killed 3,421 people in Iraq since the beginning of 2013, according to figures compiled by AFP.